{"id":2906,"date":"2025-12-14T20:53:58","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T20:53:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/?p=2906"},"modified":"2026-04-23T15:37:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T15:37:00","slug":"dantes-paradiso-translated-by-d-m-black","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/?p=2906","title":{"rendered":"Dante’s Paradiso, translated by D. M. Black"},"content":{"rendered":"

I would warmly recommend D. M. Black\u2019s translation of Dante\u2019s Paradiso<\/em>, both to people who already know and love Dante and to those who don\u2019t but are ready to take on a long poem of medieval religious vision. I hope my discussion will show the nature of the work\u2019s contents to people who haven\u2019t read Paradiso<\/em> in any translation, and that my quotations will give those who do know it already a flavour of Black\u2019s particular style. I\u2019ll say a bit more about this at the end of the piece.<\/p>\n

Paradiso<\/em> is of course the third and culminating section or cantica of Dante\u2019s Divine Comedy<\/em>. It shows how Dante the pilgrim, having travelled down through the increasingly dreadful circles of Hell (in Inferno<\/em>) and climbed the mountain of Purgatory (in Purgatorio<\/em>) ascends through the various heavens to reach the Empyrean and be granted a vision of the saved souls, the angels and God himself, beyond space and time in eternity. Being the third and last, it\u2019s also the least read; readers who don\u2019t stay the course never reach it. It also offers different satisfactions to the preceding cantiche. Inferno,<\/em>where Dante meets the souls of those who died hopelessly at odds with God\u2019s will, is the most obviously and often terrifyingly dramatic. It also offers the most compellingly tragic or bitterly ironic stories of the dead souls\u2019 actions on earth. In Purgatorio,<\/em> drama is of a gentler and less intense kind because everyone Dante now meets wills the same thing and is on course to achieve it. However, we\u2019re still deeply engaged on a human level because sympathetic and loving emotions are sharpened and hauntingly entwined with acceptance of sacrifice and loss, above all when Virgil, Dante\u2019s beloved guide and almost father, must return to Hell. In Paradiso<\/em>, Dante ascends through the various heavens towards a vision of the divine. Guided by Beatrice, he receives lessons on the way from souls representing different forms and degrees of holiness. The glory of this cantica is not in stories of life on earth but in the ravishing poetry with which it presents stupendous visions of order, love and light.<\/p>\n

This poetry draws power from opposing sources. In the first canto of Paradiso<\/em> Dante invents a word \u2013 \u2018trasumanar\u2019 \u2013 to signify the passing beyond the human condition that he says enabled him to receive visions superhuman in scale and purity. However, what makes these visions so moving is that they\u2019re continuously infused with sensitively evoked human feeling, whether in the way the saved souls are presented or in the ongoing stories of Dante the pilgrim\u2019s reactions to what he sees and Dante the narrator\u2019s struggles to recall and express his experience. Similarly, Dante is a highly visual poet, but passing beyond the human involves passing beyond what we can visualise, and some of the most memorable passages intensely activate the visual imagination in order to force it into trying to conceive the inconceivable.<\/p>\n

Sublime conceptions are present from the start. In the heaven of the moon, Dante meets the humblest of the blest. When Dante asks one of them \u2013 Piccarda Donati \u2013 if souls like her desire a \u2018higher place \/ to see more and to be yet more beloved\u2019,<\/p>\n

…<\/span>She and the other shades first smiled a little \u2013
\nand then she answered me with so much joy
\nshe seemed ablaze with the first fire of love:<\/p>\n

She explains that it is impossible for them or any of the saved to desire more than they have because that would be discordant with the will of God:<\/p>\n

\u00a0….<\/span>And in his will is found our peace: it is
\nthat sea to which all beings move that are
\nby it created or by nature made.<\/p>\n

This last tercet is often quoted, whether in Dante\u2019s Italian or in different translations. What quiet power there is in the simple phrases, both in terms of their psychological and metaphysical meanings. What I find most stunning, though, is the imaginative reach that unites these vast ideas to the delicate humanity of \u2018She and the other shades first smiled a little\u2019. Love in the most absolute sense, the creative love of God, is brought together with the simple human joys of shared knowledge, shared feeling, and the ability to communicate these things, so that we feel how such emotions in this world offer glimpses of the divine.<\/p>\n

Revelation follows revelation till the final four cantos, which present a rapidly evolving crescendo of vision as Dante sees more and more deeply into ultimate reality and for an instant sees into the mind of God as angels and blessed souls do. At first these visions are brilliantly visual. He tells us he saw<\/p>\n

…………………………<\/span>light flowing like a river
\nof radiant gold between two banks, both painted
\nwith all the marvelous blossoms of the spring;
\n….<\/span>and from that river came forth living sparks
\nthat settled in the flowers on every side,
\nlike rubies clasped within a golden setting,
\n….<\/span>and then, as if made drunk with perfume, they
\ndived back again into that marvelous torrent,
\nand as one entered it, another came out.<\/p>\n

Dante dips his eyes into this river and it becomes the circle of eternity. Dante now sees that the flowers are human souls and the sparks are angels. He sees the court of eternity as a stupendously vast theatre in which the souls of the blessed are arranged in tiers according to their rank:<\/p>\n

….<\/span>And therefore in the shape of a white rose
\nthere was displayed to me the saintly host
\nChrist made his bride with his most precious blood;
\n….<\/span>but the other host which, flying, sees and sings
\nthe Glory of him on whom their love is set,
\nand by whose Goodness it is made so vast,
\n….<\/span>like a task force of bees that at one moment
\nin-flower themselves, and at the next return
\nto where their labour will acquire its sweetness,
\n….<\/strong>descended into that great flower, adorned
\nwith petals in such multitude \u2013 and then
\nflew up to where their love forever lives.
\n\u00a0….<\/span>And all their faces were like living flame,
\ntheir wings were golden, and the rest so white
\nno snow has ever equalled that perfection.<\/p>\n

Vivid visual description continues as Dante looks at the highest saints in reverence and love and as Beatrice is replaced as Dante\u2019s teacher by Saint Bernard, renowned for his dedication to the Virgin Mary. And then he is granted a vision of God himself, a vision beyond anything visual description can convey, beyond his power to express in words or even to recall. Almost magical images express the elusiveness of the vision itself:<\/p>\n

….<\/span>Like one who has a vision in a dream,
\nand when the dream has passed the passion wakened
\nremains, but nothing else comes back to mind \u2013
\n….<\/span>like such am I, for now my vision has
\nalmost entirely ceased, yet still there trickles
\ninto my heart the sweetness born of it.
\n….<\/span>Thus in the sun snow loses its sharp imprint;
\nthus in the wind the fluttering leaves disperse
\nthe Sibyl\u2019s utterance and it is lost.<\/p>\n

(In Virgil\u2019s Aeneid<\/em> the Cumaean Sybil\u2019s prophecies are recorded on leaves which are blown about and lost.)<\/p>\n

….<\/span>O overflowing grace by which I dared
\nto fix my vision on eternal Light
\ntill in it all my seeing was consumed!
\n….<\/span>And in its depth I saw, contained within,
\nand bound by Love into a single volume
\nwhat in the universe are scattered pages:
\n ….<\/span>substance and accident and their relations
\nall, as it seemed, in such a way united
\nthat what I speak of is a simple light;
\n….<\/span>and I believe I saw the universal
\nform of this unity, for even as
\nI speak of it I sense my joy expand.<\/p>\n

Further attempts to find images for what he \u2018sees\u2019 break down but he\u2019s left with a direct ineffable experience of insight into and oneness with divine Love:<\/p>\n

….<\/span>And here my high imagining failed in power;
\nyet now already wish and will together,
\nlike a wheel that spins with even motion, turned
\n….<\/span>with the Love that moves the sun and all the stars.<\/p>\n

What I\u2019ve said so far seems particularly geared to giving people who don\u2019t know the Paradiso<\/em> a sense of why it\u2019s worth their time. Now I want to say why I\u2019d recommend this specific translation, both to them and to those who do already know the work. I\u2019m no Dante scholar and can\u2019t judge Black\u2019s version on purely scholarly grounds but I have enjoyed the Paradiso<\/em> in several different translations, and wrestled with it in Italian. Black\u2019s version is the one that\u2019s given me the most intense imaginative experience and sheer reading pleasure. This is because he writes as a poet translating a poem into poetry for a wide readership, less concerned with word for word accuracy than an academic Dantist needs to be.<\/p>\n

Dante\u2019s sheer conception in the passages I\u2019ve quoted so far is so powerful that it\u2019s hard to know how to divide admiration between him and his translator. A few lines from the beginning of Canto xxx seem a fairer basis for comparing Black\u2019s translation with two other versions to illustrate what I think is his special strength. The passage is an extended simile, and in the original goes:<\/p>\n

….<\/span>Forse semilia miglia di lontano
\nci ferve l\u2019ora sesta, e questo mondo
\nchina gi\u00e0 l\u2019ombra quasi al letto piano,
\n….<\/span>quando \u2018l mezzo\u00a0 del cielo a noi profondo,
\ncomincia a farsi tal, ch\u2019alcuna stella
\nperde il parere infino a questo fondo;
\n….<\/span>e come vien la chiarissima ancella
\ndel sol pi\u00f9 oltre, cos\u00ec \u2018l ciel si chiude
\ndi vista in vista infino a la pi\u00f9 bella.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Black gives us this:<\/p>\n

….<\/span>Maybe six thousand miles remote from us
\nthe sixth hour burns, and here this world already
\ninclines earth\u2019s shadow almost to the level,
\n\u00a0….<\/span>when deep above us the mid-sky begins
\nto change, and here and there some stars no longer
\nsend their appearance to the distant Earth \u2013
\n….<\/span>and as the radiant handmaid of the sun
\nadvances further, so the sky shuts down
\nlight after light, including the most lovely:<\/p>\n

Robert and Jean Hollander give:<\/p>\n

About six thousand miles away from here
\nthe sixth hour burns and even now this world
\ninclines its shadow almost to a level bed,<\/p>\n

when, deep in intervening air, above us,
\nbegins such change that here and there,
\nat our depth, a star is lost to sight.<\/p>\n

And, as that brightest handmaid of the sun advances,
\nthe sky extinguishes its lights,
\neven the most beautiful, one by one.<\/p>\n

Robert Durling has:<\/p>\n

….<\/span>Perhaps six thousand miles away the sixth
\nhour is burning, and our world is lowering its
\nshadow down almost to the level bed
\n\u00a0….<\/span>when the transparency of the sky, deep
\nabove us, begins to become such that some
\nstars no longer appear as far as this floor,
\n….<\/span>and as the brilliant handmaid of the sun
\ncomes further up, so the sky closes itself, light
\nafter light, even to the most beautiful.<\/p>\n

Each version has its own beauties, phrases that cast their own unique spells. One wouldn\u2019t want to be without any of the three, and no doubt if they were forced to choose different people would have different preferences. To my mind, though, there\u2019s at least one respect in which Black has a clear edge: the sensitivity with which he orchestrates his syntax and its punctuation by line endings makes for a smoother and at the same time more dynamic and emotionally charged unfolding than we find in the other two, harmonising the inflexions of emphasis with the patterns of breath. The heightened emotional charge depends on details of phrasing and placement that may seem small in themselves but cumulatively both heighten the clarity and impact of the picture presented and bring them more home to the reader. For example, \u2018remote from us\u2019 directly invites the reader into the scene, standing him or her beside Dante, as against the Hollanders\u2019 more abstract \u2018away from here\u2019. The Hollanders\u2019 \u2018even now this world \/ inclines its shadow\u2019 uses emphatic phrasing, but buries \u2018even now\u2019 within the line. Black\u2019s \u2018here this world already \/ inclines earth\u2019s shadow\u2019 uses rhythm and cadence rather than rhetorical phrasing to achieve a quieter but more potent emphasis simply by placing \u2018already\u2019 at the end of the line and creating suspense as to what is already happening. As for \u2018so the sky shuts down \/ light after light, including the most lovely\u2019, that final line has a fluid beauty that almost breaks into song, befitting the crescendo of joy and love and wonder filling the final cantos of the Paradiso<\/em>. The Hollanders\u2019 line, \u2018even the most beautiful, one by one\u2019, achieves its emphasis on the gradual fading of the stars at the cost of underplaying their beauty. Black\u2019s arrangement gives the fullest possible life to both the gradual fading and the loveliness. Durling\u2019s version is actually in prose, as the introduction to his and Martinez\u2019s edition points out, but is laid out in lines \u2013 presumably for ease of cross-reference with the Italian \u2013 in a way that sometimes makes for awkward interruptions of the flow.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s above all this kind of smooth but dynamic unfolding that makes Black\u2019s version so expressive and so satisfying for continuous reading. Although he doesn\u2019t rhyme his lines have a strong forward impulse that goes some way to capturing the momentum of Dante\u2019s terza rima rhyme scheme. Another factor is that he makes sure his notes don\u2019t get in the way. They\u2019re presented in a clear, non-academic style and kept to what is useful to the general reader. They don\u2019t wander into specialist areas of historical or linguistic enquiry. In more scholarly editions, the weight of background information and analysis can make it difficult to settle into a relaxed but focused, imaginatively receptive state of mind. As Black puts it in the Acknowledgments, \u2018My guideline in these notes has been to provide just enough information for the reader who is momentarily puzzled, who asks the question \u201cWhat is going on here?\u201d but whose real wish is to get back to reading the poem.\u2019<\/p>\n

Paradiso<\/em> by Dante Alighieri, translated by D. M. Black. $22.95. New York Review Books. ISBN: 978-1-68137-943-2.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I would like to thank David Cooke for his permission to repost this review, which appeared in the Winter 2025 issue of The High Window.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I would warmly recommend D. M. Black\u2019s translation of Dante\u2019s Paradiso, both to people who already know and love Dante and to those who don\u2019t but are ready to take on a long poem of medieval religious vision. I hope my discussion will show the nature of the work\u2019s contents to people who haven\u2019t read […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dante","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2906"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2906"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2915,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2906\/revisions\/2915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}